1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus equipped with a wafer inspection module.
2. Description of the Related Art
In semiconductor wafer production, inspecting the semiconductor wafers that have been manufactured by the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus is an important process. For example, with a plasma CVD apparatus the thickness of the thin film deposited on the semiconductor wafer is important. If this film thickness becomes irregular within the semiconductor wafer plane, the produced chip will have different characteristics in different parts of the same semiconductor wafer.
Traditionally, a semiconductor inspection apparatus is provided separately from the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, and the semiconductor wafers processed by the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus are transferred to the semiconductor inspection apparatus to be inspected. In the aforementioned example, a film thickness measuring system is provided separately from the plasma CVD apparatus, and this film thickness measuring system is used to measure the film thickness on the semiconductor wafers that have been processed by the plasma CVD apparatus.
The wafer production volume per unit time (throughput) and floor area occupied by the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus (footprint) have become major concerns in recent years in the field of semiconductor wafer production. As explained above, however, the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus and semiconductor inspection apparatus are two separate apparatuses and therefore a specified number of semiconductor wafers needs to be processed first, before they can be transferred to the semiconductor inspection apparatus. The time needed to transfer semiconductor wafers between the two apparatuses cannot be ignored, either. Having to use two apparatuses also increases the footprint.
One way to improve the throughput is to install in the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus a semiconductor wafer inspection chamber as a module equipped with a semiconductor wafer inspection mechanism. For example, in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2005-286102 a semiconductor wafer inspection chamber is connected to the handling chamber, just like the reaction chamber, to achieve improved throughput and smaller footprint.
However, this method requires semiconductor wafers, already processed in the reaction chamber, to be transferred to the semiconductor wafer inspection chamber via the handling chamber for inspection in the semiconductor wafer inspection chamber, and this increases the processing time beyond what is needed to process semiconductor wafers. Inevitably this method also increases the footprint by the semiconductor wafer inspection chamber.